courage of a phantom
by Is-this-a-good-name
Summary: During the reality trip, after finding the gem of life, team phantom rests at a local diner, when they are chased out of town thanks to an untimely news report. During this cross country trip, three days pass by. What did the viewers miss during their harrowing trip to save their families? And what really happens in the middle of nowhere? This should be fun.
1. Chapter 1

Danny sighed as he stared at his greasy burger with disinterest. He had barely touched the thing, and judging by the slightly grey sludge that was leaking onto the plate, that was probably a wise decision for his stomach.

Oh! But he was so tired. Danny didn't know he could be this tired. "It's what I get for insisting on flying 700 miles cross country instead of sharing the convenient atv next to me" he muttered to himself. His sour words were underscored by flecks of meat splattering across his cheek by his best friend sitting next to him. Unlike Danny, Tucker had no qualms about chowing down on a suspiciously grey burger in a rundown diner in literally the middle of nowhere.

Danny grabbed a napkin and wiped off his cheek. Across the booth from him sat Sam. She gave Danny a pitying look in between scathing glares at their mutual and often revolting friend. Sam was carefully picking at her baked potato, which was the only thing on the menu that was close to being on her strict ultra-recyclo vegetarian diet.

"Danny" she soothed, "While I can understand your dislike for that pathetic excuse for food, you need to eat something. You've been flying all day, and that's just after defeating a living rocket ship, and _that_ following holding the Fenton jet invisible all the way to Florida. You have to take care of your body or it won't take care of you."

Danny watched her with a half smile then looked down once more at the burger wannabe. "I know Sam he muttered and tried to take a bite of grey-burger. Before it could get it to his mouth, Tucker slapped him on the back enthusiastically. "That's the spirit man. Keep up that strength with some protein." Danny could actually see a string of unidentifiable grey stuck between his best friend's teeth. That did it. No appetite whatsoever. He shoved the plate away and glared into the corner of the room where a small tv was playing some vapor drone.

Sam glared at her friend who looked between them both confused. "What?" he asked innocently. Danny rolled his eyes while Sam's stare intensified to a death stare. Tucker shivered before tuning them both out and reaching over to snag Danny's untouched burger. At this action the death glare coming from Sam was quickly entered the emanate destruction faze. "Well, if he's not going to eat it" was the sorry excuse he provided.

Before sparks started shooting out of Sam's ears Danny placed a gentle hand on her elbow and shook his head. Sam was about to turn her ire on him when she saw his face. In the shadows of the greasy dinner it looked gaunt and there were dark bags under his eyes. The bright sapphire eyes looked dim and his overall appearance was grungy. There were a few burns where the rocket propulsion had gotten the better side of his shirt and there were grease stains everywhere. Sam thought he had the appearance of a Victorian chimney sweep. All at once the heat left her feeling as tired and worn as her best friend looked.

She rubbed her face and followed his gaze. Where she thought he was watching the television she noticed that his look was locked onto an elderly couple sitting in the far corner perched on bar stools. There was an old man skinny as a rail digging into his burger with as much enthusiasm as their friend Tucker showed for all meat, if it could be called that. He wore brown overalls and a worn brown hat. From where she sat Sam thought looked bald as a baby and had about as many teeth to match. He would smack his gums and hum and mutter to himself as he ate clearly enjoying himself. Sam had to admit that the man made quite a spectacle.

But once she got over the slobbering mess of a man, Sam noticed that the old geezer was not alone. Sitting quietly and comfortably next to him was what appeared to be his polar opposite. There was a plump woman with thick fuzzy white hair. She wore a bright yellow dress and sat contentedly eating her roast and vegetables with a small smile on her face. She was also humming to herself, but unlike her counterpart hers seemed to have something recognizable as a tune. In her lap was a sleeping dog who was happy to watch the world go by so long as he could stay right where he was. He watched the people go in and out with half lidded eyes and a small wag of the tail when the old woman spoke to him.

"They're sweet, aren't they?" The sudden question startled Sam out of her momentary daze. She looked over at Danny and blushed just a bit at having been caught off guard. She quickly schooled her face and gave him a steely look but elected to say nothing. Danny chuckled quietly.

Of course, Tucker had to add his two cents worth. "Get a good look boys and girls. This is what happens to lovebirds when the get old." Sam was interested to discover that she had the ability to gain the ire and heat back near instantaneously when needed, even after believing herself to be drained to exhaustion. Her hand cocked back into the locked position on its own volition while her eyes took measurements and aim all within a second's time. Strike angle confirmed. Fire!

"Ow!" Tucker's head hitting the back of his seat made a satisfying crack. The sound had an immediate calming effect and she felt a great release of pent up stress leave her body. Danny was both amused and annoyed. "Can it you two. Tucker, be grateful that her hand was open and her combat boots stayed on the floor. Sam, I would really prefer if the only two allies I have in the world stayed conscious and concussion free for the duration of the cross country trip of horrors. Sam huffed and tucker sobbed silently rubbing the back of his head.

"I think it's about time we headed out. Get the gear together and use the restroom if you need to." Tucker needed no further convincing. He swept his stuff together and handed the majority of the bundle to Danny for safe keeping, not trusting Sam's temper. A few items though, he stuffed into various pockets, not allowing them to leave the safety of a two-foot perimeter of himself.

After a few *ahem* personal moments, Tucker studied himself in the mirror and adjusted his beret. With a sly look around Tucker applied a few squirts of _Foley_ to the back of his neck. The rich undertones of musk combined perfectly with the sweet aroma of vanilla and, only because he couldn't find any cinnamon during development, there were trace hints of vinegar. How could anyone ever underappreciate his creation? He gave his reflection a wink and a click of the tongue and turned towards the door. However, what he found wiped the smirk from his face.

Danny stood in the middle of the café. Sam stood in front of him as though to block him from imminent danger. All around the room, the patrons were either peering from the corner of their eyes or openly glaring. Some were whispering to their neighbors or slowly pulling out phones. But Danny had eyes only for the old fuzzy tv tucked away in the corner. Through blurry speakers they could hear what was clearly a news report.

A pretty blond woman was on one side of a split screen. Her hair was perfectly coifed and she looked crisp and professional in a starched white a cream blouse and skirt. Her expression was serious and attentive to her guest. Opposite her a man with thick graying hair in a white suit and dark glasses sat on the other side of the screen with what appeared to be futuristic and complicated machinery behind him. There were intermittent beeping noises and occasionally a flunky in a lab coat would walk past the camera in the background with hurried steps. Underneath the screen was a banner scrolling the news that in ghost child Danny Phantom had been revealed as none other than Danny Fenton child of self-proclaimed ghost hunters.

The woman was now questioning her guest. "Danny Phantom has been a divisive figure for a year now. Some people have called him a hero, while others call him a villain. But with this new information, seeing that he is in fact the son of very well respected ghost hunters, can we be sure that he is a danger? He has clearly been living among humans for a while now. As far as all appearances can tell, he lives a fairly well adjusted life as a human."

"Kathy, the fact is we know very little about this particular situation. You have brought up several facts and I will try to address them quickly. First, Danny Phantom has been seen repeatedly putting the citizens of Amity Park in danger to further his own ends. His fights cost the city thousands of dollars of damage every month. So regardless of his status as a hero or villain, we do know that he is both dangerous and reckless.

"Second, as far as Danny _Fenton_ is concerned, he comes from a family that is semi-capable at best. We of the GIW have found their tactics to be crude and unreliable. During inspections, we have found their laboratory conditions to be deplorable. One of our inspections discovered _**ecto sludge**_ smeared across their _**work table!**_ " Here the man's eyes bulged and a tick appeared at his temple. Kathy was staring at the camera and supposedly her view of the agent with narrowed eyes at the outburst. He took a deep calming breath and the crazy began to fade from his face. "Clearly these are unsanitary conditions for such delicate work" he continued.

"Finally if Phantom is just a misunderstood teenager, we would encourage him to turn himself in. We have actively been searching for him for the past year. He has evaded us with remarkable adeptness. We are the best ghost catchers in the world with the finest training and facilities on the planet. For him to have done so well, we believe this to be the working of a sociopathic mind. He behaves with a calm detachment to his surroundings and gleeful cheer when disrupting official government business. We once again urge the public to be on the lookout for Danny Phantom or Fenton. If you see him, contact us. Do not approach him…"

The television clicked off and silence permeated the room. Danny blinked a few times numbly as Sam continued to glare around her. Most everybody was staring openly, but anyone who caught Sam's eye quickly looked away. Tucker took the awkward silence as his own personal calling card. Many people thought that technology was his superpower. How wrong they were. His superpower was immunity to awkward situations. With a big grin on his face he walked up to the counter where the keeper was utterly uninterested in everything going on around him as he wiped down the counter with a greasy rag. Tucker taped on the bar. "I'll take the check please."

The beefy man looked at Tucker with a half amused smirk and slid the sheet of paper over to him. Tuck failed to notice the uncanny similarities the man had to an overweight hog as he took a look at the bill and pulled out a twenty. "Keep the change my good man as a token of appreciation for a man who knows his meats." This got a true smile out of the man revealing a few missing teeth and stressing his double chin. He tucked the bill away under what looked like a chopping knife. An extremely sharp chopping knife with a cold glint. Tucker passively noted that the location of change being under a rather dangerous knife would unnerve most people, but Tucker could appreciate the necessity for properly cared for utensils. After all, anything that tasted that good could be considered nothing less than a work of art.

He made his way over to his two friends with a pleased look. Danny was coming out of his stupor and adrenaline kicked in making him both jittery and anxious. "Guys, we should probably go." He was interrupted by a flash from a camera phone. That shook him awake. Suddenly anxiety became tinged with anger. He scowled at the photographer wannabe. Flauntingly, he took another blinding picture. Danny's face went deadpan. He raised one finger and unerringly shot the phone out of the man's hands with a green blast. The man hissed in surprise. Which _unsurprisingly_ brought out a bunch more phones. Danny elicited a grown. "Look guys, unlike what the doofus in white says, I'm not dangerous, wreck less, or carless. How many phones am I going to have to break to prove it to you?" Tucker snorted at the ironic comment. A small electrical charge pulsed from Danny's center near his heart. It quickly spread through the room and every electrical device it touched sparked and went dead. "Sorry folks" he stated in a decidedly unrepentant way. "But all communication devices will be temporarily down for the next ten hours or so. Pardon the inconvenience." With a tip of an imaginary hat, he saluted the patrons and left with his two friends in tow.

The three friends left the dingy diner and took deep breathes of the cool clean night air. Evening had set leaving the sky a deep violet with a splattering of stars in the east. Danny hung his head back and soaked it in. Sam, not content to leave the poor boy in peace, poked him in the ribs. She most certainly did not giggle at his grunt. Goths do not giggle. "Come on Mr. Electric, we've gotta hit the road." Danny nodded and they made their way over to the two parked atvs. An exhausted Danny made no effort to protest when Sam pushed him to the back of hers. He had been going for about 20 hours straight.

After seeing that her bleary eyed friend was situated, Sam looked over to their techno geek. "Okay. So we made it from Florida to here. Next stop is _Gothapaloza_ in Nevada. How far will that be from here?" There was no answer. Sam looked over at their unresponsive friend for an explanation and found a very foreign look on his face. If she didn't know better, she would have thought that it was befuddlement. "Tucker? _Tucker._ TUCKER!" The last one she yelled into his ear. He jumped and glared at her.

"What?" he demanded. "I was asking you how far we had to go. When will we finally make it to the darkest, most horrifying, and soul crushing event of the year?" Her voice got higher and pinched in her excitement of the dark wonders to come.

Tucker looked at her glee with detachment. "I don't know." He stated. It was blunt and cutting. It brought Sam up short. After a moment of continued nonspeech, Sam questioned, "What do you mean you don't know?" "Just what I said, Sam, _I don't know"._ "Well what about Betty? Does she know?" Tucker's face morphed into a pained expression. "Betty's not talking to me" Sam simply raised an eyebrow. "Got in a fight with your girlfriend?" she jibbed. In response Tucker turned his pda around so that Sam could see the blank and nonresponsive screen. Sam rolled her eyes at her friend. "You forgot to Danny proof your latest and clearly most expensive piece of tech you own?" she questioned in disbelief. Tucker's face turned pink. "I would never. Danny proofing my tech is always my first priority just after uploading my personal anti-Technis firewall." "Then how do you explain Betty?" "Clearly this is a curse." Sam closed her eyes and bumped her forehead with her fist. "The only curse around here is you, Mr. Bad-Luck-Tuck. Just get on. Like Danny said earlier, you'll be back online in about ten hours. We can make it fine on our own until then." Tucker did not look convinced, but got onto the other atv anyway.

Danny seemed to be in a waking trance. His eyes followed Sam as she sat down in front of him, but he gave little in the way of response. She turned to look at him face on. "Danny, you can rest soon, but until we get to our next campsite I need you to hold onto me. Okay?" The nod in response was slow in coming, but when he did she gave him a smile. "Good boy". She slipped on her black faux leather jacket over her tummy shirt and grabbed both of Danny's hands. She placed them on her waist and kick started the engine. The four wheeler growled to life. Two atvs pulled out of the gravel parking lot and into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

Two atv's sped along the country road in a more or less southwesterly direction. The wind kicked up and whipped the passenger's hair around. They had been on the road for about twenty-five minutes and were hoping to find a highway or any identifying landmark. So far, the closest thing they had found was two stoplights and a caution sign. Unless cows and windmills counted as a landmark. But the further they traveled the more the seemed to slip further into the depths of nowhere. Eventually they found themselves at a fork in the road with no clear direction. The pulled over to a stop and looked both directions.

Sam looked to tucker and frowned. She was tired. More tired than she thought she should be. After a year and a half of ghost fighting, her stamina and strength had been greatly bolstered. She had just eaten a good meal, and if she was honest with herself, she had not done anything to physically exhaust herself. She could only put the fatigue down to the stress of worrying about her family. Sure they were annoying, but they were hers. And she knew that she loved them, just as much as they loved her.

By unspoken agreement, Sam and Tucker decided to take a quick break and stretch their limbs. They turned off their engines and got off. Danny watched as Sam slid off but elected to stay seated. He leaned back on the atv and cocked his head back to look at the crystalline black sky.

Sam stretched her arms over her head and twisted her back working out the kinks. She sighed in relief at the audible pop. Then sent a sneaky look over at Tucker to relish in his disgusted face that she knew would be there. He didn't disappoint. They wondered back and forth on the inky blacktop as they strained their eyes in all directions. The world around them was quiet, the road deserted. Although it was officially summer, there was still a chill in the air that picked up during the evening. Across the road was an endless stretch of sunflower fields and half grown stalks of underdeveloped corn. The land looked endless and under the bright almost full moon it had an ethereal quality to it. Tucker looked to the moon and shivered rubbing his arms. This early in its rise in the east it gave the illusion of being twice as big. The pale lifeless quality reminded Tucker of Freakshow's anemic pallor as the craters imitated the profile of a face. This turned his mind to unpleasant fantasies of spies looking down on them from above.

Sam broke the spell with a groan. He looked to her to see her scrubbing her face with her hands and digging her fingers into her eyes. She dropped her hands to her sides and leveled Tucker with helpless stare. She had smudged her eye makeup making the dark princess of the night look truly frightening.

She shrugged at Tucker. "I just don't know. What should we do? We have no map, no working electronics, and absolutely no clue which way to go. We might as well just set up camp here and call it a night as much good as this is doing us."

Tucker fidgeted. Out of habit he reached for his pda, then remembered it was dead. He could have kicked himself. The one thing he added to the team, aside from his wit, charm, and good looks, was nullified. "I don't know Sam. We just need to keep heading either south or west. Theoretically we will hit a highway or river somewhere that we can follow into civilization."

"Sure! That's what you said a half hour ago. But now look where we are. Do you even know which way south is?"

"That way." The two looked over to Danny. They had all but forgotten he was there, or given him up for brain dead for the night having fallen into its basest functions and not to be roused unless they were in dire circumstances. But what they saw was Danny watching them with half lidded eyes pointing directly across the field they couldn't cross.

Sam stomped her foot. "Ugh! Why is our way always blocked?" She had meant it rhetorically, but received an answer anyway.

"It's the town, I think." Danny said in a strangely distant voice. Tucker snorted, "what town?" and Sam elbowed him for his troubles. Danny continued to speak in his strange tone, "We have been taking all of the south and west roads we can find, but they all find a way to twist back on themselves. There are no road signs, and almost no landmarks. We have yet to cross a railroad track or body of water. Even the moon is strange here."

Tucker shivered once more as he was reminded of the moon. "Wha-what about the moon?" he questioned nervously.

"It shouldn't be this full. Last night it was only three days past the new moon and shouldn't look any bigger than a fingernail. Now it's waxed to almost full." His expression morphed into a considering look. "Actually, I'm not even convinced it's rising in the east."

That got their attention. Sam spoke up. "Okay space nerd. I may not know about deep space and all that, but the one rule I do know, the sun and moon rise in the east and set in the west." Danny looked her over. "Well", he started slowly. Honestly, tired or not, that slow drawl was starting to get to her. "The sun definitely _set_ in the west. But based on the constellations, the moon did not _rise_ in the east."

Tucker and Sam exchanged very unnerved looks. Tucker moaned almost desperately. "So have we been going the wrong way this whole time? You know, somehow I don't think Freakshow's going to accept 'we got lost' as an excuse for missing his deadline. Stress on the _dead_ ".

Danny shook his head. "No, we've been going the right way to get out of town. I just don't think the town's done with us yet."

Tucker looked like he was about ready to cry and Sam opened her mouth to comment, when she was interrupted by headlights.

Chugging down the twisting road was an antique green farm truck with old fashioned wooden rails on the bed. The old thing shuddered and bumped over every twist and rut the road offered. It made more noise than it had any right to. It hiccupped and coughed as it made its agonizing way towards home. Sam and Tucker had to jump out of the way as the driver seemed to be utterly unconcerned with anything but the road. Anything _on_ the road had better look out for itself.

As it made its way past, Sam looked like she wanted to give the driver a good piece of her mind, and her friends doubted not that he would likely choke on it. But as it happened, Sam might just have gotten her chance. As the truck was just about out of sight, there was a great sputter of the engine, a squeal of the breaks, and a small crash as the truck veered off the road into a shallow ditch. Smoke immediately issued from the hood of the truck. Sam and Tucker exchanged unbelieving looks then looked back to the scene of the accident.

Without looking away, Tucker stated," So I guess we should…" but he never finished his sentence. At that moment he saw his best friend jogging past the other two, straight for the vehicle. Sam groaned knowing all too well that her friend was about to stick his nose where it didn't belong. And in the middle of his own man hunt, too.

Danny jogged straight to the driver window and pulled a keychain flashlight from his pocket. He clicked it on and peered into the window. What he found was a skinny old man in brown overalls and a hat, thick glasses, and a bald head. Next to him on the bench seat was a plump old woman in a yellow dress with thick white hair, and a little dog anxiously whining at her from her lap trying to get her attention. It was the old couple from the dinner. He just now realized that they hadn't been there when the chaos had ensued after the news report. He reached up and tapped on the glass.

The old man looked up at Danny and scowled. Then he opened the door without regard to Danny's being in the way and would have clipped his knees had Danny not jumped out of the way. As the old man got out he was already muttering to himself. "Conflabbit nabbit. Dang old truck."

"Are you okay, sir?" Danny asked concerned. The old man turned his thin neck in Danny's direction and took him in, before waving him off and muttering some more as he made his halting way to the front of the truck. As soon as the lid was raised a billow of smoke gushed out. "Confound it!" The man yelled followed by more words that made since only to the man.

Danny looked for a moment, but decided that the smoke and smell from the engine did not indicate any imminent explosions and let the man be for the moment. He made his way over to the other side of the truck and look in once more. From this angle he could see the old woman's face looked pale and the skin looked thin. Her head was resting on her left shoulder and she wasn't moving. The little dog had gotten more worked up and was actively stressing over the situation. Danny jiggled the handle, but the door didn't open. He jiggled it harder. Nothing. He glared at it. Then he reached an invisible hand inside the door, opening it from the inside, while pretending to unlatch it from the outside. The door swung wide and Danny ducked his head in.

The dog backed up for a moment and looked carefully up at Danny. Danny offered a soft smile to the dog and spoke gently. "It's okay boy. I'm here to help." The dog shook a bit but backed off. Danny reached a hand to the woman and touched her cheek. It was warm and he could see her chest rising and falling. He gently shook her shoulder and spoke out. "Ma'am, can you hear me? Ma'am." He reached his other hand over and lifted her head up. Her eyelids fluttered and bit and she groaned softly. "It's alright. You're fine. Can you open your eyes for me?" Her lids finally lifted and faded blue eyes met his. "Oh, my. Hello dear. What are ye doin' out here?" She had an odd accent that Danny thought might have been Irish.

"Your truck ran off the road. I was worried and came to see if you needed any help." He offered in a soothing tone. "Well isn't tha' grand?" Her voice lilted and she rolled her r's. "Courage, you hear tha'? The young man was worried about a lady! He's just like a knight in shinin' armor. Heehaha" she chuckled to herself. Danny's face burned and he thanked the heavens that it was night. At that moment his friends walked up.

"Danny" Tucker called. "Is everyone all right?" The woman looked up curiously. "Oh! And I see he brought friends. A beautiful young lady and a handsome young man like himself. How splendid!" The old woman gushed. Tucker gawked at the comment as the old lady, Danny was worried she might be a bit daft, smiled to herself happily, as though she wasn't stuck in the middle of a random old country road with no foreseeable way home. Sam sighed in an exaggerated manner and eyed Tucker with 'I-told-you-so' clearly written across her face. Tucker only shrugged back. Danny might be his best friend but he was _her_ defacto boyfriend.

Danny dug around in his pack and fished out a bottle of water. He opened it and handed it to the lady, who smiled sweetly and accepted the offering. She drank deeply and managed to hum at the same time without choking. The dog next to her was still shivering with stress and seemed to moan to himself when his mistress took the water. Danny looked at the dog who shrank in on itself under his gaze. He offered it, _courage_ he thought to himself, a small smile that didn't show any teeth. A trick he had learned to use around skittish animals and children, two groups that seemed to have a strong perception of his ghost half. He held out a hand and let the dog sniff him at his own pace. The dog took a small sniff and shuddered once but seemed to settle down a bit. He snuggled into the woman's lap, but kept a careful watch on the group of strangers.

Danny turned back to his two friends. "Stay with her. She seems out of sorts, or maybe she's always this goofy. I didn't see any injuries, but I don't think she should be alone. And that husband of hers sure didn't offer much help. He left her here unconscious in her seat." He gave a sigh and looked to the front of the truck.

Tucker nodded. "Sure man. But where are you going?" "I'm just going to take a look at the engine. Maybe I can help." He frowned though as though doubting his ability to do so. Tucker slapped his thin back roughly making Danny stumble. "No problem man. I'm sure if anyone can fix this piece of junk, you can. You've had enough practice in your parent's lab." Danny nodded and trudged away muttering what sounded like, "I'm sure I _could._ It's whether the old coot will _let_ me."

Tucker shared an amused look with Sam as their abused friend trudged off. They would have more pity if it wasn't Danny and themselves doing ninety percent of the abusing. Sam looked the woman over then her eyes rested on the dog. She decided that would make for a nice neutral conversation starter.

She cleared her throat awkwardly, "So, who's your dog?" she asked with a strained smile. Honestly, she really was a cat person. Dogs were so… she didn't know, but there was a _reason_ Cujo liked Danny best and it wasn't their mutual ectoplasmic biology.

The woman smiled at the girl and laid a heavy hand on the dog's head. "This is my Courage. I've raised him meself since he was a wee thing. He keeps me company. Neither of us live very excitin' lives, but we have each other." A crash followed by a thud and finally a sputtered curse came from the front of the truck. The lady raised her eyes toward the source of the commotion. "Oh yes. We also have my husband, Eustace." She seemed to add this part as an afterthought. Tucker nodded, "Uh-huh".

Tucker tried to restart the conversation. "So, Miss…?" "It's Muriel Dear. Muriel Bagge."

"Right, Mrs. Bagge. Does your truck often break down in the middle of the road?"

"Oh sometimes. But Eustace always fixes it. He's a fine mechanic and fixes everythin' around the farm. Oh, and call me Muriel, Dear. Everyone does." At this comment another hiss of smoke filtered out of the engine and they could hear Danny speaking in a coaxing way. The two friends shared another look and realized their thinking was along the same lines. If this Eustace was the mechanic, it was a wonder the thing ever ran at all. The dog, Courage, echoed their thoughts with one long defeated moan.

Danny was about ready to wring his own neck. The man was beyond frustrating and more stubborn than his own parents were about their projects. He hadn't realized that was possible. It took about two minutes of stammering suggestions be for the man even acknowledged his presence behind him. Finally, the man turned around full body to face the teen and glared at him.

"What do you want boy? Can't you see I'm trying to fix this thing?" he barked out. Danny grimaced at both the unsavory attitude and foul breath that was aimed his direction. He gave his best smile and tried to reason with the man. "Sure, I can see that. I just thought you could use a little bit of help. That's all. Like maybe if you had a light you could see what you were doing a bit better?" Here he shined his flashlight onto the engine brightening the contraption to a manageable degree.

However, this seemed to only irritate the grouch. "I don't need no stinkin' help from no kid. I've been taking care of this truck all my life and I'm not stopping now." With that said, he turned back to what he was doing and continued to ignore Danny's existence.

Danny huffed, but he noticed that the man had not demanded that he take his light away, so he continued to shine it where he thought it was most needed. He was content to sit back and watch until he noticed the man reaching for something better left alone. "Um, I wouldn't…"

"What are you complaining about now, boy?" but the statement was underscored with him removing the cap of what Danny was trying to warn him away from. This caused a chain reaction of a large piece of the engine dropping into another piece, a clang as both pieces twisted and warped with the impact, and a colorful cursing from the old man. Or, at least Danny assumed it was cursing. It had the right cadence, but he didn't recognize any of the actual words.

Danny smacked himself in the face. This was going to take all night at this pace, and Danny knew that he and his friends needed rest. But he grinned as another thought came to him. This wasn't the first crotchety old man with listening problems he had had to deal with. Danny surreptitiously walked up to the man without making much sound and looked over the mess of an engine. It took him about five seconds to diagnose the problem. Surprisingly, with all the patchwork fixes and awful sounding crash, the damage wasn't insurmountable. In fact, if the man had any decent tools, this could be a remarkably easy fix.

Danny stepped back and spoke in a loud, clear, and exaggerated voice, "Man if this old man would just let me up there I could fix this thing without even bothering with a tool set." It was a painfully obvious ruse in Danny's opinion, but he watched the man carefully to see if he would take the bait. The man straightened up and placed his fisted hands on his hips. Then he bent over and deliberately pulled out his tool box. Danny indulged himself with a pleased grin as he watched the old man pull out a tool at random. A completely useless tool for this job. The man needed to get out his channel grips.

Danny feigned misunderstanding and again speaking far too loudly to only be talking to himself, "Oh geez! I can't believe that guy pulled out the channel grips. The most worthless tool ever." The old man paused and muttered a few times, then slowly leaned back down and came up with channel grips. He held them up as though examining them, but made sure they were in Danny's full view. And so it went. Danny loudly proclaiming everything that Eustice shouldn't do, Eustice defiantly disobeying, and thereby slowly making steady progress on fixing the truck.

Danny looked at the results and smiled. Then in a loud voice declared, "Pshh, that thing will never run now. It's broken. Why even bother trying to turn it on?" With a grumble the old man slammed the hood down and hobbled over to the door. He slid in and turned the key. With minimal grinding and complaining the engine complied and started. Eustice raised his arms in the air and hollered his victory. His wife looked on completely content with life.

Danny joined his friends by Muriel's window. The old woman gave him a warm smile. "Oh, hello again, dear." Danny waved a bit bashful. Tucker turned to his friend. "Danny, may I introduce you to Muriel Bagge and her husband Eustice. I believe you have already met her dog Courage."

Danny smiled back at the woman. "It has been a pleasure ma'am. I think you guys will be fine now. Have a nice night."

Muriel looked startled at his words. "Oh! But you can't leave now. It's practically the middle of the night." Tucker looked to his watch as muttered, "It's only eight o'clock" before grunting. Oddly there seemed to be an elbow in his solar plexus. He didn't remember leaving an elbow in his solar plexus.

Muriel continued, "You all have been such dears. You must come stay with us for the night. We would love to have you over. Right, Eustice?"

"Say what?" came the dismayed reply.

Sam gave the kind lady a real smile. She was starting to grow on the girl. She kind of reminded Sam of her grandmother. "Really, it's okay. We have to leave early in the morning anyways. We're comfortable camping for a night or two. It really gets you back in touch with nature. We would hate to be a bother."

Muriel smiled blithely, "You'd be no trouble at all. You've been such a help. Why, Courage would love to have some company for a change, isn't that right?" Courage lifted his head up and stared straight at the woman, then looked at the three standing outside. He looked anything but convinced. He whined just a bit.

She smiled all the more brightly, "That settles it then. You must come over and I'll fix you a nice breakfast in the morning." Tucker was convinced, but it was Danny who spoke for the group. With a small grin he looked at the woman. "Alright." His one word decided their fate and guided them down the fork in their road.


End file.
